You don’t really read Eoin McNamee for his plots – though he is superbly good at them, and can nudge a gripping conspiracy thriller to life with just the right touches of jittery menace. You read him for his sentences

I Will Be Complete is, at 477 pages, a monster. But the epic feel of Glen David Gold’s book is also down to the fact that it’s the record of an obsession – the story of Gold’s lifelong attempt to understand his mother